If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Education

Hello all. I am writing to inquire about whether or not anybody has insight or advice on how to proceed with self teaching web development and programming. I know the basics are HTML and CSS but I am wondering whether there are professionals out there with advice on which languages to learn and some essential skills needed in this competitive industry. I have just started researching this skill and am quite intrigued about the process. I do not have the ability to attend school for this subject as I have my associates degree in accounting and plan on going back for a chemistry or geology major. I wish to learn how to web develop because it is an amazing process and I could implement it well with my accounting degree in the meantime. Any advice and suggestions for the self teacher is appreciated!

Hi,
If you know html and css, try learn PHP and Javascript. With these languages you can create profesional and dinamically web sites.
You can find courses with free lessons, tutorials and e-books at this address: http://coursesweb.net/
Or look on the net for: "learn php pdf".

I started off with HTML+CSS. Then when I felt I was good enough to move on I went to JavaScript/jQuery, finally PHP. Javascript is to add interaction with your user. I'd suggest learning PHP first because I look at Javascript as something to add effects/interaction to the site, so my first priority is getting a site which fully works, pages loading in with PHP using a basic template system etc. I usually leave JS till last, using it to add little features to the site which add a bit more creation.

I were in your position just 3 years back. Now I develop J2EE based web application using Spring and Hibernate for a company based in London. Since I have been working on Java for last 3 years, my suggestions will be on Java only and I think you can bet on Java (most widely used programming language in this planet). My suggestions are :

Try to learn at least one JVM based language (it could be Java, Scala, Groovy).
Try to learn at least one web framework (Spring, Struts etc...)
Learn MySQL (if possible Hibernate - Object Relational Mapping tool)
Thats enough to get you a job. Once you get a job then try to learn at least one new langauge every year. It could be any language.